The history of medical teaching

Abstract

I n the early Middle Ages, doctors-to-be were not students, they were apprentices, taught something about herbs and surgical skills by older peers. In the monasteries, concurrently but independently, monks were busy copying classical texts in the scriptorium. These sources, however, were not consulted. Convents' infirmaries preferred handbooks of medical botany derived in their local orchards. Then came a transition. At the en~l of the 10th century, a sort of preacademic teaching developed in Salerno on a late Alexandrian model. Mentors were respected, authoritative, and strong personalities. Soon thereafter, Constantin came to Monte Cassino, translated Greek and Arabic medical writings, and introduced in the west the then far superior Arabian medicine. Legal Bologna and medical Montpellier became the Meccas of scholastic medicine with their ambitions and methods: institutions were founded, students enrolled, a pedagogy was developed, and standard methods were adopted. Being a doctor was based upon a static non-improvable book learning: its transmission was therefore quite easy. Dissections were done to confirm, not to discover. Ex-cathedra teaching is certainly not flexible. But other didactic methods The history of medical teaching